


Go See the World

by Chash



Series: The Stars Glow For You [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 20:46:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14433756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: After he starts dating Clarke, Bellamy curates his convention experiences a lot more carefully. Not because he doesn't want to go, but because he doesn't want to go without her and Madi. Cons are a family affair, after all.When Octavia gets him something in Paris, it feels like a great excuse for a big family vacation. And some other family conversations he's been putting off.





	Go See the World

**Author's Note:**

> It's been like a month since my fandom anniversary, but I got distracted by my Bromans AU. But I asked for requests for timestamps, and this verse won, so here's a timestamp, as promised! Got some other stuff from that in the pipeline too, woo.

Somewhat unexpectedly, entering a relationship with a woman he met through the convention circuit actually reduces the number of cons Bellamy goes to.

He's not mad about it, obviously; it's hard to be upset about wanting to spend less time traveling because he wants to be with his girlfriend and her daughter instead. And while extra money is always nice, he's doing more than fine, financially speaking. It's easy to look at his schedule and decide he'd rather stay in LA, watching Netflix on Clarke's couch, than skype her from some random hotel room across the country. It's not a big loss, overall.

But it's not like he's _opposed_ to cons. He's just become a little more selective, has more things to plan around. If Madi has a soccer game, he doesn't want to be off in some random convention hall in Ohio, when he could be there, trying to stop Clarke from arguing with the ref unless the ref really deserves it. 

It's striking, how much his celebrity used to feel like his whole life; he never noticed before.

So he's been turning things down and waiting for summer vacations to hit, which feels only a little silly. It's not as if he doesn't or can't go places on his own, it's just a lot more fun to have Clarke and Madi around. And Madi still loves nothing more than being a VIP at a con, so when he goes without her, he always feels a little like he's depriving her. 

Besides, it _was_ how he met them; going without them is just lonely.

His sister knows that too, so when she says, "Hey, I have a con you definitely want to go to," he believes her.

"Yeah? When and where?"

"June, after school is out. In Paris."

He pauses. "Paris?"

"They got in touch with me, I guess one of the organizers is a big fan. For some reason."

He's gone to international cons before, of course--if nothing else, they're a great excuse to travel--but he hasn't gotten any viable offers since he and Clarke got serious enough that international travel would be an option. And he knows Clarke went to France when she was younger on a family vacation and loved it, and Madi has never been out of the country.

"I do want to go to that," he admits. "Send me the dates so I can check it with Clarke. We'll probably want to turn it into an actual vacation."

"God, you're disgusting."

"Wow, thanks. Why, exactly?"

"I'm just saying, you and Clarke have been together for, what, a year and a half?”

"Around there, yeah."

"Lincoln and I are married and we don't coordinate our lives this much. I go on trips without him all the time.”

"It's almost like we're different people with different priorities." The phone buzzes in his hand, letting him know he has five minutes before he has to be back on set. "Also, going on vacation with my girlfriend and her daughter is actually the opposite of weird. So send me the details, I need to go to work."

"That's your excuse for everything."

He doesn't get a chance to review the actual details of the convention until his next break, but it's not as if there's much to review. Like Octavia said, the dates are after Madi is done with school, and it's _Paris_. He doesn't really care that it's multi-fandom, or how much he's going to get paid; it's going to be awesome regardless.

For a regular con, he'd just text Clarke with the details and ask if she was interested, but this one feels weightier. It's an _event_ , or at least he wants it to be. He's already invested in the idea of their first family vacation.

Which is maybe a silly way to think of it, but those things have been weighing on his mind. His sister might think that he and Clarke are already an old married couple, and she's right in some ways, but Bellamy can't help thinking of all the ways she isn't. If he had to pick one word for their relationship, it would be _uneven_ , albeit in the most positive sense of the word. He loves her, and he's sure he wants to spend the rest of his life with her--there's no question in his mind about that. And he's pretty sure she feels the same.

But the pacing is tough, on both sides. Clarke has Madi, and Madi's her top priority. They're good by now, at least legally speaking, but he knows she still worries about her feeling comfortable and valued, the same as he does. And Bellamy might not do cons as much as he used to, but being an actor is still a big time commitment. He works long, strange hours, and has all sorts of bizarre commitments. And his life is under a weird microscope, too, especially his love life. He hadn't thought much of talking about the existence of his girlfriend, but he should have known better. His show is popular, and _he's_ popular, and he can't even take Clarke to an event without internet weirdos analyzing their body language and using it to prove that they're secretly miserable or he wants to leave her or she's a beard or a thousand other untrue things. He knows why they're taking it slow and weird.

But they still don't even _live together_. It's not the worst thing, but he'd like that to change someday soon. And this feels like a good reason to do a general relationship check in.

He'll take any excuse, at this point.

It's not too long a day on set, so he texts Clarke when he's done and asks if he can bring anything for dinner. She and Madi are apparently in the mood for sushi, so there's that to pick up and eat before he can actually get Clarke alone. Not that he has anything against family dinner, of course--Madi's getting to that age where she just wants to be in her room on her phone all the time, so dinner is one of the best times to catch up--but he has _news_. He wants to share. 

They could have just _gone to Paris_ , of course. But Bellamy still has trouble just doing things for the hell of it. It doesn't occur to him that he can take a vacation on a whim; there always needs to be an excuse.

"So, is something up?" Clarke asks, as they clean up the dishes.

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't think you were coming over today."

"Something has to be up for me to want to hang out?" She just looks at him, and he makes a face. "I did want to talk to you, but I also like being here. It doesn’t _have_ to be a thing."

She laughs and presses her lips to his shoulder. "It doesn't, but it is."

"Nothing bad. You want to go to Paris in June?"

Her hands freeze in the sink, and her head snaps around to stare at him. "Why?"

"You sound like you think I'm taking you there to murder you," he teases. "I got invited to a con, I figured we could make it a whole trip. Madi's done with school, I'm not filming, I assume you have vacation time--"

For some reason, her expression goes thoughtful. She catches her lip in her teeth, studying him like she thinks there's some secret agenda here. "And?"

"And what?"

"You were kind of twitchy, I was expecting more angst. This seems pretty straightforward."

"Leaving the country is kind of a big deal."

"Is it?"

He pauses, leans back against the counter to look at her. "I feel like it's part of a bigger conversation, yeah."

Clarke mirrors his movement, propping herself up against the table across from him and upping the ante by crossing her arms. "What conversation is that?"

"I keep thinking this is a family vacation," he says. "So, uh--I want to talk about becoming more of a family, I guess."

Her eyes go wide and huge; it feels like something of an overreaction, until she asks, "Are you proposing?"

"Shit, no," he says, way too fast, and then, " _Shit_. I'm not--not proposing? Fuck." He runs his hand through his hair. "If you want, I can--"

Mercifully, she cracks up, which would suck if he was trying to propose, but since he wasn't, he's mostly glad she's not offended. "Holy shit."

"You started it!"

"You were so serious!" She recovers, grinning at him. "So, you don't want to propose."

"I do eventually," he admits. "But I wasn't planning to during this conversation."

"So, what did you mean?"

He rubs the back of his neck. "Cohabitation."

It doesn't feel like it should be a surprise. In fact, part of why he's worried so much about bringing it up is that Clarke _hasn't_ , and it seemed like he must be the only one who was interested in moving in together, or even thinking about it. It doesn't make any sense, but--it is weird.

"Oh," she says, tone and expression inscrutable. "Yeah."

"Yeah."

"You want to?" she asks. "Live with us."

It's not the question he was expecting. "You thought I didn't?"

She laughs again, but it's humorless, a disbelieving kind of laugh. "Okay, we should get booze and go to the bedroom."

"It’s that bad?"

"I don't really want to have a serious conversation in the kitchen. I'm not upset," she adds, pushing off the table and leaning up to kiss the corner of his mouth. "I would love to have this conversation. In private."

"With booze."

"I like booze for all conversations."

He has to smile. "Okay, yeah. I'll have a beer."

Clarke's bed is really the only place to sit in her room, which he never minds. He takes the right side of the bed, she takes the left, and he likes that he knows that, that they have their places and preferences figured out. He loves spending time here.

She leans into him immediately tonight, cuddling in close, which is oddly comforting. Whatever else is happening, it's obvious he wasn't the only one thinking about this.

"So, you didn't want to ask me about moving in," he says.

"I did. But--it's a lot to ask."

"It's not."

"I know you love Madi, but--"

He nuzzles her hair. "Please don't tell me you were planning to avoid asking me to live with you until she went to college.”

"Not that long. Just once she got out of the angry teenager phase."

"Clarke."

"It wasn't really like that. I didn’t have a timeline or anything. Just--" She rubs her face. "I don't know how to say this without sounding like I'm an asshole."

"I just yelled that I wasn't proposing to you, I think we're even." 

She smiles a little, almost reluctantly. "I know you love me and Madi, but I thought you might be good with how things were. Not taking on more responsibility or getting more involved."

"There's no such thing as too involved for me," he says. "I thought you were worried about me being her full-time dad."

"Honestly, I still can't believe you _want_ to be."

It stings, but only a little. After all, he grew up with a single mother, and he remembers how it was for her. She'd thought his sister's dad would stick around, but he realized it was too much for him. It would become a familiar pattern over the next few years, and he gets why it would make her worry.

"I'm always going to want more, Clarke," he tells her, pitching his voice low, sincere. "You guys are my family. I want to wake up with you, I want to be here when Madi needs me, I want to take her to shit when you're busy and talk to her about stuff if she can't talk to you. If I'd known you wanted me here, I would have been here every day."

"I think we could do better than here." He frowns, and she gives him this perfect grin, all mischievous and excited, an expression he's never seen before. "If we're moving in together, we probably want to be closer to your work. With both of us, we could afford more space."

He has to laugh. "Yeah?"

"You don't think so?"

"I'm just--that's it? We're on the same page now? You don't need to talk to Madi?"

"I think Madi's been wondering what the holdup was."

"Adult insecurities." He kisses her hair. "Okay, so, uh--moving in now, Paris vacation in June?"

"Marriage eventually. Assuming all the other stuff works out."

"Here's hoping." He takes a long swig of beer and settles in next to her. "You want to watch something?"

"Yeah. Are you staying?"

"For as long as I can, yeah."

Clarke bites the corner of her mouth, smiling. "Stupid question, I guess." 

"Nah," he says. "I'm glad we're on the same page."

*

They don't tell Madi about it until the weekend, mostly because they're all busy until then. Madi has school and Clarke and Bellamy have work, and even though he sleeps over for the rest of the week, they don't have much time for serious conversations He does tell Octavia to book the Paris con, but it's not like that requires effort on their parts yet. They can plan the vacation later.

Once they've gotten the whole housing situation figured out.

Madi's got plans on Saturday, which means Bellamy and Clarke have basically the whole day to sit around on the couch in pajamas, looking at real estate listings. It's a new experience for Bellamy, who ended up in his current place because a former coworker was moving in with _her_ girlfriend, and she sold it to him cheap. If it ends up as some sort of weird, transitional home for single actors, he won't be upset about it. He should see if anyone on _Hitchhiker's_ is looking.

Clarke, by contrast, knows a good deal about real estate, apparently because her mother is into that. Which, knowing what he knows of her mother isn't surprising, but it's one of those things that catches him off-guard sometimes. These days, he's better off financially than Clarke is, but she had money growing up, which gives her a baseline understanding of financial stability that he's never had. Her mother invests in real estate because wealthy people know how to turn money into more money; Bellamy's still working on that part.

"I don't really get it either," Clarke says, scanning through Zillow and opening houses that catch her eye in new tabs. "I think my mom was just at loose ends for a while. She hasn't bought a house since she married Marcus, so that must have helped."

"Yeah, it was hard when my mom died, but I didn't buy a bunch of property."

"I didn't after my dad either," she shoots back, but she's smiling. "I'm not saying it's for everyone. But once we find some we like and think we can afford, we can ask her about it."

"It's just so much money."

"Wasn't your condo a lot of money too?"

"Yeah, but that was before I knew better. I was still excited I could buy a place at all, and I knew Anya wouldn't rip me off."

"Okay, yeah." Clarke tucks her hair behind her ear. "We don't have to get a new place, but--"

"No, I want one," he says, and it's true. Clarke's place is nice enough, but the location isn't great for him, and they could all use more room. He has a one-person condo, and she has a two-person one. It would be nice to own a house, with enough room for all of them and their stuff. They could get a dog, maybe, or a cat. They could have a guest room, and space if they ever decide they want more kids than just Madi.

They can afford it, and it's worth it. He wants them to have a home.

"Just keep reminding me that it's a good investment."

"It definitely is. Do you see any you like?"

Once he's gotten into the right mindset, it's not hard to get into the whole thing. They're not necessarily planning to handle everything themselves--getting an agent is probably their best bet--but it's good to have an idea of what there is and what they might be able to find within their budget.

"Is it weird that this is what makes me feel like a grown up?" he asks.

Clarke laughs. "That's how I felt when I decided I wanted to adopt Madi. Fostering, it felt like I was just helping out for a little while, not actually being a parent. But when I realized I actually wanted to keep her--"

"So you're already an adult and I'm not?"

"You were raising your sister when I was in elementary school. Getting a kid isn't the milestone for you it is for me."

"I had a condo before too."

"A house is different. A house means we're settling."

"Yeah." He sighs and drops his head against the back of the couch. "Can we talk about Paris instead? That's the good kind of adulting."

"Moving in together is good too."

That's undeniable; living together is the best adulting ever. And he's pretty sure he's even going to like looking at houses, when they’re doing it in person. But the prices are still making his head spin; he needs a break.

"It is. Have you been to Paris before? I know you did France."

"Just for a couple days. And I was pretty young, so I don't remember much. I liked the Eiffel Tower, I thought the Mona Lisa was kind of a letdown. The food was good. Have you ever gone?"

He shakes his head. "I did some European cons, but not there."

"So, what do you want to see?"

"Cool history stuff," he teases, and she laughs.

"Ask a stupid question."

"I wouldn't mind doing more than just the city. We could go for a couple weeks, if you can take the time."

"It's not like I have to work nine-to-five most days," she points out. "I could make a long vacation work. We can see what Madi wants to do. Maybe there are places she's interested in too." She grins. "Are there other cons you could be going to? Can we do a European tour?"

"I don't think we need cons to do a European tour."

"You're bad at vacations."

This is true. "I could get better. Maybe I need to throw myself into it."

"So let's come up with a list of things we want to do, and we'll figure out how long we need to do them."

Clarke is one of those people who excels at vacations, if what you want out of your vacation is a rigid schedule. She wants to get the most out of her time off, which means that every day needs an activity, and every activity should contribute to the overall goal of the trip. It's not something Bellamy minds; it's served him well at cons they go to together, where he has limited free time, and Clarke is happy to figure out how to efficiently fill it. Without her, he'd probably just hang around in his hotel room playing video games. 

Still when she says, "And we'll want one day for unscheduled fun," he has to snort.

"You're scheduling _unscheduled fun_? How does that work?"

"You want some flexibility! You can't predict how you're going to feel on the trip, so you want to have a day to catch up if you miss something else, or if you find something you want to do you didn't know about or--" She stops when he just keeps grinning at her, frowning. "You're making fun of me."

"I love you," he says, still grinning. "You're so good at fun."

"We're going to have way more fun with a plan."

"We are. It's cute. I'm glad we have some flex time in case stuff goes wrong. Do we have flex time for what Madi wants to do?"

"We have as long as we want. We could probably afford to rent somewhere in Paris for the whole summer if we wanted to."

"Not if we want to have savings after I finish this show."

"A couple weeks, maybe. We'll see what she says. Maybe she won't want to come and she just spends part of the summer in DC with Mom and Marcus." His surprise must be obvious, because her expression softens. "I don't think she's going to want to skip it. Don't worry."

"Not that. You'd want to go without her?"

"I'd rather she came with us, and if she was really against it, I wouldn't go. But I think she feels comfortable enough with us now that if we wanted to go on a boring history tour of Europe and she wasn't interested, she'd be okay with staying with my mom for a few weeks without thinking we were abandoning her. Not that I really think any of this is going to happen," she adds. "I'm pretty sure Madi wants to run around Paris with us for a few weeks."

"Not if we're not doing anything she's interested in."

"I assume you're uncomfortable with how well this is going for you and looking for something to go wrong."

"Or I'm really excited and afraid it's not going to live up to my expectations."

"Same difference." She kisses him. "I need to pick up Madi. Do you want to start dinner?"

It's not a new arrangement. Clarke has a kitchen, but she doesn't understand how it works; Madi's a better cook than she is, and Madi's not much of a cook. Bellamy can't say he's always enjoyed cooking, not when he was younger and his focus was on making food go as long as it could without his sister getting sick of it, but he likes it now. As with most things, it's more enjoyable when it doesn't feel like the stakes are life and death.

So he cooks at Clarke's whenever he's around, and when he cooks for himself, it feels a little lonely, like he has too much food and not enough mouths.

Yet another reason he wants to move in. Then, it can always be like this.

He's chopping onions when Madi comes in, washing her hands without comment.

"Welcome back," he says. "How was your day?"

"Good. Can I help?"

"Finish the onions," he says, and they switch places so he can deal with some of the dishes while everything else is cooking.

"Clarke said you wanted to talk to me," she says.

"Did she say I should do it alone?'

"Not that you should, just that you could. If you wanted."

If Clarke said he could, it probably means she wants him to, and he even gets it. He and Madi have their own dynamic, and if he's going to move in, they need to cement that. He can't always wait around for Clarke to show up and mediate, if he's a full member of their family. 

She could have warned him, but maybe she didn't think of it either.

"We're getting a new house," he says. "For all three of us."

"Cool. Are you buying it?"

"Depends on how much it costs. I think Clarke and I will probably try to put down the same amount on the down payment, unless we go really expensive."

"Are you getting married?"

He huffs. "Everyone keeps asking, so we probably should, huh?"

"Who's everyone?"

"You, Clarke, my sister."

"So just add Miller and that's all your friends."

"Roan sort of counts."

"Sort of." She chops the onions in silence for a minute. "Were you waiting for me?' she asks. "To move in."

"Not really. This stuff is always more complicated than it feels like it should be. I've never moved in with anyone before, so I didn't really know how to ask."

"Never?" she asks, sounding wary.

"I had one girlfriend I wanted to move in with, about a year after I met you," he says. "But it was one of those perfect sitcom misunderstandings. We both said we had something important to say at dinner, I let her go first, she broke up with me."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, I wasn't thrilled. But we weren't actually that serious. I was trying to figure out the next step, and I thought it was moving in together. She thought there shouldn't be one." He shrugs. "I ranted to Miller for a while about it, he told me I'd be fine, and he was right. A lot of young actors end up getting way too serious way too quickly about relationships, I'm lucky I didn't."

"So now you're sure?"

"Yeah. You're cool with it? You do get a vote."

"You're here all the time anyway. If I didn't like you, I would have said before."

That makes him smile. "Yeah, I guess so. And you're good with moving?"

"As long as we move somewhere good."

"That's the plan, yeah. How are those onions coming?"

"Done."

"Cool, cook them with oil and the garlic."

Clarke comes in as they're finishing up, kisses Bellamy on the shoulder, but directs the question to Madi when she asks, "Did you guys talk?"

"Yup. Bellamy's moving in and we're getting a new place. I was gonna say I don't know why you were nervous, but I do. You're always nervous. But I'm good. I want a nice room. And a dog."

"We're not getting a dog until after we get back from Paris," Clarke says. "We'd only have it for a few months and then leave it alone, and I'd feel bad."

"Paris?" Madi asks.

"He didn't tell you that part?"

Bellamy shrugs. "I wanted to get the stressful part done first."

"He's got a con in Paris right after school's over. We're going to take a vacation, and then we can come back to our new house and get a dog."

Madi bites the corner of her mouth on a smile. She's supposed to be too old to think all of this is awesome news, but she's not quite pulling it off. Which is just as well; it _is_ awesome, and it would be nice if she could still enjoy it.

"You guys really have this all figured out, huh?" she asks, and Clarke gives her shoulders a squeeze.

"We're getting there, yeah."

*

As it turns out, buying a house and moving into it is a great way to make time completely fly by. It's not as if everything else in Bellamy's life falls to the wayside--he still has work through April, the same as Clarke does, and Madi has school--but when he has free time, it's generally going into house stuff. The place they get is nice, but it needs work, in the best possible way. They're planning to stay there, and they want to make it theirs. Every weekend, they're looking at paint or furniture, putting up art, doing landscaping. 

Making it theirs.

Clarke is still thinking of Paris, though, even if Bellamy doesn't realize it. They chat about it sometimes over dinner, Madi chiming in with things she wants to see, Clarke mentioning how she's juggling her workload, but Bellamy has enough going on that it slips his mind almost entirely until Roan asks him about his flights.

"Shit," he says, blinking. "I told them I'd book my own and invoice them. I totally forgot."

"Oh?"

"We were going to turn it into a vacation." He scrambles for his phone, gets a quick text out to Clarke. "Madi's never been out of the country so it seemed like it would be fun. Fuck, we've been so busy--"

_We have flights_ pops up on his screen from Clarke. _You know me, I'm a planner_.

"Apparently Clarke's on it," he says, a little sheepish. 

"So, when are you going?"

"No idea," he admits. "Probably Tuesday or Wednesday. She likes flying on weekdays because it's cheaper, and it's not like I have much of a schedule right now." His mouth tugs up on one side. "Of course she didn't forget. She's probably got our entire trip planned out to the minute."

"How charming," says Roan, dry, and Bellamy shrugs.

"Awesome organization doesn't have to be a kink for you. More hot Type As for me."

"Take them with my blessing."

The conversation lulls, and Bellamy tries asking Clarke what their travel plans are, but all she gives him is the information for the first flight. As he expected, it's on Tuesday, with an estimated arrival time in the early evening, so that they can have dinner and go to sleep in an attempt to minimize jetlag.

He does know her pretty well.

**Me** : When are we coming home?

**Clarke** : It's a surprise

**Me** : You know I'm going to have to pack for this surprise, right?  
I'll need to know what to bring

**Clarke** : I've got you, trust me  
If you wanted to know about the vacation, you should have been paying attention

**Me** : Sorry I was working on our house  
I'm an asshole

**Clarke** : Just like I'm an asshole for planning a surprise vacation for you?  
Yeah, that's awful  
We should probably break up

**Me** : Touche  
Thanks for making sure I didn't fuck up the nice thing I was trying to do for you

**Clarke** : Like you said, you were working on our house  
I owed you one

The trip can't drop out of his mind again after that, because that's not how his mind works. Now that he's forgotten it once, he's paranoid about forgetting it again, but Clarke is tight-lipped, and even Madi isn't willing to fill him in. In fact, she's cool enough about the whole thing he can't even tell if she actually _knows_ , or if she's just pretending to to fuck with him.

Honestly, it's impressive, and he's proud of her.

"You can't just trust Clarke to do something nice?" she asks, a week before the trip, and he winces.

"I never said I didn't trust her. I just feel bad for not knowing."

"If she wanted help, she would have told you. It's not like you did anything _wrong_. So you can just stop worrying that you're doing something wrong, you definitely aren't."

"When did you get so smart?" he teases.

"Stable home environment really helps. We're going to have fun," she adds, and he smiles.

"Yeah, can't wait."

Clarke does fill him in, to an extent, when it becomes time to pack, but it's still pretty vague.

"You should bring clothes for like a week? But we'll have access to laundry, so it's not a huge deal. The weather looks like it's going to be pretty good. Comfortable shoes for a lot of walking, including walking out of the city."

"Seriously, is there a reason you're keeping me in the dark about this?" he asks, more curious than anything. "Do you have secret plans I can't know?"

"You've been working really hard on all the house stuff."

"So have you."

"Not as hard as you have, trust me." She leans in and kisses him. "I just think you deserve something nice. So this is me, giving you something nice."

"It doesn't have to be cloaked in secrecy for it to be nice for me," he says, but a smile is threatening to take over his face.

Clarke's expression is a little softer. "At first it was just funny, honestly. I wasn't trying to hide it from you, but you weren't paying attention. And then I figured it could be a surprise. I wasn't sure you were ever going to notice."

"O would have reminded me eventually."

"Eventually." She pokes him. "Remember when this was what you were excited about?"

"I'm still excited about it. But I was mostly excited to tell you. I knew you were going to have fun with it."

"And I am! Making plans for you is fun for me."

"I'm shocked you enjoy being a control freak," he teases. "Okay, does this look like a good range of stuff?"

"Mostly. Bathing suit?"

They get enough clothes to satisfy him and Clarke packed, and then she lets him examine her bag for clues, of which there are of course none. Clarke’s not that sloppy.

“I did ask my sister if everything got cleared with her,” he points out. “And I know I don’t have anything scheduled for two weeks.”

Clarke makes a kind of vague noise of agreement, and he snorts.

“That’s basically what she said too.”

“You have phone interviews, you can do those anywhere. Do you really want to know? Is it bothering you?”

“Not really. I don’t have anything going on and I know you handled logistics." He grins. "Trying to figure it out is fun for me too."

"Of course it is. You're right," she adds. "Two weeks. Base."

"Base?"

"We might like it."

"So you're allowing for the possibility that we decide we just want to move to Paris? Because I just got this house fixed up how I like it."

She smiles, bright, but still clearly hiding something. "I allow for all possibilities," she says, patting him on the shoulder. "Bring a lot of books."

*

It makes a little more sense when they get to the place they're staying. He hears the address Clarke gives their taxi driver, but of course that doesn't mean anything to him. He has no concept of where anything is in Paris, and the fact that she gives a street address instead of a hotel name doesn't seem particularly suspect. Of course Clarke knows the street address; names are ambiguous.

But as they drive through the early evening streets, it feels less and less like they're going to somewhere a hotel might be. It feels residential, a little intimate, and when they finally come to a stop, he has to ask, "Where are we?"

"We've got an apartment."

"You bought an apartment?"

She rolls her eyes. "Of course I didn't buy an apartment. My mom knows a lot of really rich people. I asked if anyone had a place we could stay in Paris, and she delivered."

"So we're just crashing in someone's second home?"

"If you were a better celebrity, you'd be able to leverage these connections yourself."

"Thanks for reminding me of my flaws."

She kisses his cheek. "That's what I'm here for."

The driver unloads their bags and Clarke pulls a key out of her pocket. "There are more copies in the apartment," she explains, unlocking the front door. "This is the one my mom's friend sent."

"And he just has a Parisian apartment he leaves empty most of the time?" Clarke's right, he's not a good celebrity, because the whole idea of owning property just to use it a few times a year is completely absurd to him. There must be better ways to vacation.

Like just borrowing some rich person's second home. Maybe he shouldn't complain.

"He rents it out. Luckily I got in before he had anything set up, and he let us have it cheap."

"How cheap?"

"Very affordable. I'll show you the bills, you can pay as much or as little as you want. Which I know means you're going to pay half," she adds, before he can say anything. "But I made the decisions without any input from you, so you're not on the hook to pay for anything. That's not fair."

"This is the last time you get to plan something like this," he grumbles, and she smiles.

"Yeah, I only get one."

If this is her single surprise vacation, he has to give her credit: it's pretty awesome. He doesn't hate hotels, but he never stayed in them before he started acting, so he associates them more with work than pleasure. 

The apartment is different. It's nice in the way their new house is nice, in the way that doesn't feel like it's going to last. He's been putting everything together so that it matches and it's all bright and shiny, but he's not convinced they're going to maintain that. It feels like the kind of home people are supposed to have, with everything coming from the same place, not the weird hodgepodge of items they had before, and that's how it is here, too. But this place is never going to be lived in consistently enough for that to fall apart.

It's still nice, though. The kind of place he can spend time in, where it doesn't feel like all he should do is sleep and order pizza when he's too lazy to move. 

A home away from home, as it were.

"This is perfect," he admits, leaning in for a kiss. Madi's got her own room, on the other side of the apartment. They could probably have sex and everything.

Clarke beams as bright as the sun. "I was hoping it would be, yeah."

"Where's your schedule?"

"It's not a schedule," she says, but her tone is more smug than petulant. "It's a checklist."

"A checklist?"

"There are some things I definitely want to see, but I didn't want to make it--it's not just _my_ vacation. We have two weeks, we have plenty of time. We can relax."

"Wow, who are you and what have you done with Clarke Griffin?"

"Shut up. It's a vacation, we can relax! That's why I wanted to get this place, not a hotel. So we could just feel like we were--here. Not like we're on a timeline, trying to get the most out of Paris before we leave. Does that make sense?"

He's loved her for a long time, of course, loves her all the time, effortlessly, a background fact of his life, like that he has a sister and that he's an actor. A defining part of his life, something he doesn't even have to think about anymore. But there are times when it hits him all at once, this sudden tidal wave of affection. And it's almost never anything big, it's just moments like this, a shy smile, her lip trapped in her teeth, like she thinks he's going to judge her for _not_ having every second of their time here mapped out in detail.

This is the woman he's going to spend the rest of his life with. This is the human he's picked.

"That sounds perfect," he says, and means it.

*

He's at the con on Saturday and Sunday, and that's the only thing Madi cares about. She brought cosplay, because of course she did, and while she's not against sight-seeing, nothing has really penetrated her facade of teenage haughtiness. Cons are always her thing, it's been established, so she doesn't have to pretend she's not excited. He has duties, of course, so he can't just run around with the two of them the whole time, but they still get a lot of good cosplay pictures, and he gets to be the exciting celebrity who can be found in the wild, checking out the vendors and other panels. He still considers it what he's best at.

_Hitchhikers_ has one of the last panels of the show on Sunday, and after, Roan surprises him by asking Madi, "So, have your guardians let you have any fun at all?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bellamy asks.

"It means I've met you and Clarke, and I assume you've been doing nothing but educational, historically enriching activities for the entire time. Planned to the minute."

"Hey, we've mostly been at the con," Bellamy protests.

"And when you're not?"

"Lots of historical sites are _cool_."

Roan nods, but it's somehow a very patronizing nod. "Of course they are." He glances at his phone. "It's still early, I was going to explore a little before dinner. Why don't you let me take Madi?"

"Take Madi where?" Bellamy asks, but Madi has already lit up.

"Yeah!"

He glances at Clarke, and she shrugs. "If you guys want to hang out, knock yourselves out. We can text you our address, she needs to be home by--ten?"

"Eleven," says Madi.

"How late do you want to be prowling the streets of Paris with Roan?"

"Uh, til eleven, obviously."

"That was pretty much a gimme," says Bellamy. It feels like Roan trying to give him and Clarke some alone time in Paris while they can get it, but if he doesn't mind, Clarke doesn't mind, and Madi doesn't mind, Bellamy's not going to be the one to stop him.

"Fine, eleven. And we're doing history stuff tomorrow."

Madi rolls her eyes. "Yeah, trust me, I know. I'll see you at eleven."

She hugs Clarke, so as soon as they're gone, he drops his head onto Clarke's shoulder. "Shit."

"What?"

"Does she have a crush on Roan?"

Clarke laughs. "Pretty sure no." She pats his head. "She hangs out with you all the time now, but she only sees Roan every few months. You just got dumped for a shinier celebrity."

"As long as she doesn't have a thing for him."

"I think we're safe; she knows better than to have a thing for Roan. Please don't spend the whole night worrying about this. Roan gave us a date, we should at least enjoy it."

"I know." He pulls his head off her shoulder to grin at her. "Do you have a date checklist, or did you not think you needed one?"

"I think we can come up with something."

And of course, she does. She gets reservations for dinner first, to make sure they get one, and then they check her list for things that Madi might not be interested in. 

"I know Madi's going to want to see this too," Clarke offers, worrying her lip, "but I want to do the Eiffel Tower. That's romantic, right?"

"It's Paris, everything is romantic. But isn't it more romantic when it's dark?"

"Yeah, but it's June. Dark isn't coming for a while. And like you said, everything is romantic."

"So you want to go see the Eiffel Tower?"

"We're not doing anything else, right?"

He twines their fingers together with a grin. "No, we've got the whole night free."

The Eiffel Tower has always been something Bellamy likes in theory, but he wasn't particularly attached to seeing it in person. So far, his favorite thing about it is its place in the sky line, the way it's _there_ , this constant presence on the horizon. It's cool to just think of it as part of the city.

They take their time getting there, strolling down the street until Clarke gets antsy about having enough time to see the tower before dinner. On the one hand, they have hours, but if she's nervous, it's not hard to skip cute little stores and just walk; after all, they have two more weeks here, and, according to Clarke, the option to stay another week in the apartment, if they want it. Losing the flights would be a financial hit, but one they can take. It might be worth it; so far, he really likes Paris.

As they get closer and closer, the tower growing larger and larger, it occurs to Bellamy that he is an idiot. He's in the most romantic city in the world with the woman he loves, and he didn't buy a ring. He didn't even _think_ about buying a ring. 

It's would be a real missed opportunity to not do it here, though. This is such a perfect time.

The thought distracts him until they make it to the tower itself. He could come up with something, definitely. Maybe Madi has some ideas. Clarke would probably like if Madi was involved; a whole family thing.

She has to elbow him to get his attention. "You're missing the tower."

"Yeah, sorry, I--" He turns to see her watching him, and even if he can't read her expression, it stops him short. "What?"

"I got you something."

"You got me something?"

"Yeah. Or--us."

"Clarke."

She wets her lips, pulls out a ring box. "I feel like women don't usually get down on one knee if they're proposing to guys, but I can if you want. It would draw a lot more attention."

It takes him a second to find his voice, and, if he's honest, his brain. "You're proposing."

"I was planning a romantic vacation anyway, so--" She shrugs a little, self-consciousness creeping onto her face. "I thought I might as well ask Roan if he could take Madi for a night."

"Holy shit I'm so glad you did that," he says, cupping her face for a kiss. "I was kicking myself for not coming up with anything."

Clarke laughs. "So, that was happy shock."

"Definitely, yeah. You got me a ring?"

"Honestly? No. I got you an empty ring box because I didn't know what you wanted, if you wanted anything. Also, we're in Paris and I want to get a fancy Parisian engagement ring."

"Very symbolic." He can't stop grinning. "Madi and Roan were in on it?"

"Obviously."

He kisses her again. "And that's why you wanted to get to the Eiffel Tower as soon as possible?"

"Proposing is stressful, okay? I wanted to get it over with so we could just have a fun celebratory vacation after this."

"Well, that was perfect."

"Cool." She grins. "So--dinner?"

"Yeah," he says. "I think we've got a lot to celebrate."


End file.
